From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Kangas Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: How are the defaults chosen? 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That's all we know. X-Spam_score_int: -20 X-Spam_score: -2.1 X-Spam_bar: -- X-Spam_report: (-2.1 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, DKIM_SIGNED=0.1, DKIM_VALID=-0.1, DKIM_VALID_AU=-0.1, DKIM_VALID_EF=-0.1, FREEMAIL_FROM=0.001, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE=-0.0001, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:254881 Archived-At: G=C3=B6ktu=C4=9F Kayaalp writes: > I doubt we can come up with any useful guidelines or rules to make it > into a more =E2=80=98objective=E2=80=99 process that could apply generall= y, but maybe > it=E2=80=99d be a nice idea to have the rough rule of thumb that =E2=80= =98defaults of > user-facing variables, or whether some modes are enabled by default, > should be debated before new features are merged=E2=80=99. That possibly > already is how stuff happens, but we could just emphasise it as a > conscious UX decision that=E2=80=99ll need to be supported once released. Yes, that is what already happens. No need for red tape. This entire discussion seems to start out from the premise that the defaults change willy-nilly, when the reality is that Emacs is famous precisely for being very backwards compatible and conservative. They change only when there are strong reasons to do so. I think it would be more useful to demonstrate some important breaking changes that we should not have done. Then we could draw the necessary lessons from that to avoid such a situation in the future. For example, perhaps those breaking changes were just bugs or mistakes, just like the breaking changes that happen in any software project (yes, including the Linux kernel). One way to improve that is to write more unit tests. Everyone is free to help with that work.